


Badlands

by orphan_account



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer
Genre: Bad Boy Ashton, Badlands, Bullying, Depression, Eventual Smut, Innocent Luke, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, i never know what to tag, if you listen to badlands you know what to expect content-wise okay, if you squint there's malum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:13:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4961920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke's heard of the badlands metaphor. It's a terrible, intoxicating place that'll turn your values upside-down. Calum's told him about it; his brothers have warned him about it. Luke just wishes they would've told him his Badlands could come in the form of Ashton too.</p><p>Or:</p><p>Luke's the high school nobody that kind of wants to disappear, and kind of wants to be Ashton's exception too.<br/>Inspired by Halsey's Badlands album.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Control

**Author's Note:**

> so basically it's my first year of college, and it's not so bad. and while I have another story in the works, I can't listen to Badlands without thinking of a twisted, awful love story like this. thus, here's badlands.
> 
> each chapter's going to be based off of a different song from the album, so there will only be sixteen chapters (or maybe more, because chapter limits are an honest struggle for me too), but hopefully this goes well. let me know what you think and enjoy!

 

> "Goddamn right you should be scared of me. Who is in control?"

Luke knows of Ashton, of course he does. He may be at the bottom of the social ladder, but Ashton certainly isn’t. He’s caught the hushed whispers concerning the grade twelve boy in the hallways even though those words weren’t meant for his ears.

Of course there are little words that are meant for his ears. He isn’t surprised by it anymore— it’s always been like this for as long as Luke can remember. Luke, with floppy blonde hair and a lanky figure, is supposed to match the rest of his freshman class. It’s not his fault he’s shy and has trouble speaking to cute girls or boys, and it’s certainly not his fault that he can barely build up enough courage to even think about doing so. He spends most of his time waiting for Calum to get out of soccer practice and listening to other people’s conversations so he feels a little normal, and he’s grown to be okay with it. He doesn’t have any other choice anyway.

It’s like what his gran always says: when life gives you lemons, keep them and wait for inflation to make you a billionaire. Or something like that. Luke can never remember exactly what she says, he just likes the way she says it.

He likes the way a lot people say things. He likes the way Calum pronounces soft s or c sounds— anything that’ll expose his slight lisp. He likes the way Ashley swears because she makes dirty words sound so light. Most of all, he likes the way Ashton’s name sounds so heavy no matter who’s pronouncing it.

“—and he was about to rat him out, so _you know who_ had to take care of him. That’s why he’s all cut up today.”

“But if Ashton looks like _that_ , I don’t want to know how the other guy looks.”

“Jess says he’s hospitalized— her cousin’s best friend’s brother works at the hospital, and she says he saw the guy get wheeled in. Broken ribs and everything.”

Luke’s trying not to creepily overhear the conversation the girls beside him in the library are having. He’s keeping his blue eyes on his biology textbook with every intention to focus for the test he has next period, but all his mind can hear is Ashton Ashton Ashton. Luke doesn’t think he’s as bad as everyone says he is (even though his biceps are like, twice the size of Luke’s thighs and he constantly looks like he could kill a moose with his glare). But he’s probably not going to be the one to find out either.

Luke won’t admit he’s afraid of Ashton though. He is. Luke’s terrified of Ashton and everything Ashton could possibly do. But if he lets it show then he’ll be more pitiful than he already is. He doesn’t need that.

He’s already the only boy in the library studying for a test he already knows he’ll fail. There’s no way he can make up for the lost study time last night by cramming now (it’s really not his fault— blood tends to be pretty hard to wash off sweaters). So he sighs, slams his book shut with a couple glares from the girls beside him, and collects his books in his arms.

Maybe he’ll skip biology today. The nurses already know how easy it is for him to get sick, so all he really has to do is go and say he’s not feeling well — cough a little just to play it up. And then he can skip the next couple days of school so his body can heal and he can study.

It’s a good plan, he decides with a sharp turn to the nurse’s office. It’s almost sad how he’s looking for ways to get out of school now. A few lies is better than a few bruises though, so the longer Luke can stay out of these hell-like halls, the better.

“— _please_ , it’s just a few short.”

Luke pauses at the corner, shined dress-shoe clad foot hovering above the hallway tile. He might not be entirely versed on everything there is to know about high school, but he definitely knows a drug deal when he hears it (he can thank all the movies Calum makes him watch later).

“A few short still makes it fucking short,” growls a second voice. It’s not until he hears whimpering that he realizes this is a drug deal gone _wrong_. His palms start sweating on cue because this is not the type of situation he wants to be in. He’s way too small to probably defend himself should anyone find out he overheard any bit of this conversation and he isn’t interested in getting bruises on top of bruises today. He wants out and he wants it now.

But his route out is directly in the line of fire. If he’s careful, he might be able to sneak by without either party noticing. He might also get a few ribs broken and his life threatened. But hey, as long as he gets to go home, right?

No, he decides as he pushes those thoughts to the side. It’s still sad, how he’s considering getting hurt over staying in a place where no one knows he exists. Maybe Luke’s just a little sad too, in more ways than one.

And maybe that’s why his feet carry him out into the hall. Leisurely strolling like he doesn’t notice a guy being pressed up against a wall and a roll of cash near where his feet should be on the floor— if his feet reached the floor. Still, Luke keeps his gaze focused on the moving tiles beneath his feet, hoping in vain he won’t be noticed.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” It’s not me, Luke tells himself. But his body flinches anyway, harshly, as strong hands grasp his shoulders and toss him against the lockers. He collides with a rough-sounding bang. If his eyes were open, he might have been able to see stars from impact.

“I-I was— “ he has to stop; breathe— “t-to the nurse.”

He’s wheezing, gasping for the breath that was knocked out of him. Desperate fingers grip at wrists and, god, he just wants to get out.

“C’mon, Mikey, ease up on the kid. He’s not the one that stole all your weed money.”

“Shut up! He can’t walk into private conversations like that either.”

There’s a sarcastic, “It wasn’t that private,” before Luke’s brave enough to crack open his eyes. He’s first met with green eyes and bold red hair (there might be a quick thought that the boy must dye it with the blood of his enemies, which he soon decides would be completely impractical— only because it’d fade quickly). It takes his eyes a moment longer to process the pale skin and full, cherry lips, along with an eyebrow piercing that Luke has to admit makes him look twenty times more intimidating with the way he’s gripping Luke like a vice.

“Shut _up_ , Ashton.”

And that’s when Luke’s blood runs cold. He looks past the redhead, to the honey colored, unruly hair and hazel eyes that he swears is more green than brown, and shit, he’s put himself in a whole new mess this time.

Ashton’s watching him curiously. His eyes are raking Luke’s body as Michael’s grip tightens on his collar.

It’s Michael that still speaks to him. “You didn’t hear anything, did you, dweeb?”

“L-Luke,” he mumbles instinctively. "It's Luke."

“I don’t _care_ —”

“Michael."

Silence.

Luke’s sure his heart’s going to pop out of his ass with the way Michael’s staring him down, and if not, he’ll definitely die by Ashton’s subtle smirk as he caps his hand on Michael’s shoulder. All this, of course, would hypothetically happen if neither boy didn’t kill him for walking in on a drug deal first. Luke still hopes he walks out alive.

“Luke, you said?” Ashton asks, eyebrows raising in soft question. He steps closer as Luke nods. He kind of wonders how fast his heart has to beat before he goes into cardiac arrest. “Why don’t I take you home, Lukey? Since you’re skipping class anyway?”

Luke’s immediately shaking his head no (not that he wouldn’t anyway — the farther from imminent danger and renowned bad boys he can be, the better). But Ashton simply chuckles, finger tracing Luke’s jaw and lifting his chin just slightly.

“It wasn’t much of a question, baby.” And this is it. Luke’s going to go home with Ashton who, undoubtedly, is going to murder him for fucking up a deal, and is going to toss his body on the side of the road for some poor pedestrian to find. His mother’s going to _kill_ him if he dies like this.

“I won’t hurt you,” Ashton adds as he pushes Michael off, “just as long as you remember who’s in control.”


	2. Drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOUR COMMENTS AND GOOD VIBES GIVE ME LIFE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT, IT MAKES ME SO FREAKING HAPPY.
> 
> I also wrote a high majority of this within the expanse of a single night so I'm sorry if it sucks, but please still let me know what you think of all this (:

> "All we do is drive; all we do is think about the feelings that we hide."

Ashton’s car is a lot cleaner than Luke imagined it would be. He imagined cocaine bricks stacked up on the blood-stained back seat— above, of course, the hundred dollar bills Ashton must make from dealing all of the things his mother warned him about. Throw in a dead body in the trunk, and Ashton’s car would match the one in Luke’s mind.

But the backseat is bare. Black leather interior with surprisingly, no cocaine bricks, both the dash and the floor are nearly spotless. Luke would be impressed if he wasn’t sitting in the passenger seat of the (eerily clean) car belonging to the boy his mother would kill him for being seen with, if that boy didn’t kill him first. It’s exciting, to know that Ashton’s exactly what he shouldn’t have. And if excitement is the first thing Luke feels, no one has to know.

“Where do you live?” comes Ashton’s voice. Luke’s eyes lift from the hem of his shirt, previously fiddling with the fabric with sore fingertips, and meet the hazel he should never have found to begin with.

It takes just a moment longer for his mind to catch up with the question— a soft hum replacing words as thought returns briefly.

But now all he can picture is himself, pajama bottom-clad, sitting on his bed as the latest Mayday Parade song plays on repeat for the rest of the night. And Luke knows that’s his fate; he knows the feeling he’ll get as he closes his eyes and lets guitar riffs encompass his body. He’ll wish the earth would do the same — open up and swallow him whole so he doesn’t have to keep getting beat up at school, so his brothers can stop teasing him about things they don’t know bother him because he doesn’t have the courage to say they do, so he can finally, _finally_ stop hiding everything.

So maybe that’s why he utters a soft, “I don’t want to go home,” as he stares into the green-hazel that is his excitement, the something he’s been deprived of.

Ashton isn’t surprised. He doesn’t react immediately. Instead, he stares right back at Luke with the same expression he’s always held — curiosity, Luke wants to say. He hopes so anyway. It’d be the first time someone’s looked at him like that.

“Where to, then?”

Luke shrugs. “Just drive.”

And Ashton does.

Ashton’s knuckles strain a pale purple as he grips the steering wheel. Luke wants to ask how they got to be that way — how Ashton always seems to be hurt somehow. He doesn’t, though. He keeps his words locked in his throat, Ashton’s words still echoing in his subconscious.

_I won’t hurt you, just as long as you remember who’s in control._

And Luke has to admit that the words only add to his intrigue.

“Everything okay at home?” Once more, Luke’s too lost in his mind to process reality.

“What?” he prompts.

“You don’t want to go home,” Ashton elaborates, taking a bruised hand from the wheel to motion vaguely in the air between them. “So is everything okay at home?”

Luke’s first instinct is to tell him that nothing’s okay anywhere. He keeps this to himself too.

“Yeah,” he says finally, staring at the expanse of road beyond the windshield in front of them. He shrugs. “Just don’t want to go home yet.”

Ashton nods absently, focusing instead on the intersection they’re coming to. “Right, left, or straight?”

“Right.”

“Typical,” the older boy snorts, turning right as Luke told him to. “Boys like you always choose right.”

Luke feels his heart sink at little at that. Sure, Luke knows he isn’t that spectacular to look at, and he knows he’s definitely not mister congeniality, but he likes to think there’s something that makes him more than the average boy like him. Maybe Ashton doesn’t know him well enough for that yet. Maybe there’s nothing at all. His chest aches at that thought.

“Boys like me,” he repeats softly, barely louder than the sound of the engine. “What is a boy like me?”

“Simple.” The ache grows. “You wake up, you go to school on a school day— probably say goodbye to your mum with a kiss on the cheek and a smile, right?—” so yeah, Luke might say goodbye to Liz in a similar fashion, but that doesn’t mean he’s like everyone else. But the sinking feeling in his chest continues to grow still. He knows Ashton has him. “— then you go through the same routine every day. No change. You do what you’re supposed to do and probably hate it too.” A pause, and Ashton’s eyes flicker over to Luke.

He has to look away, turn to his hands that are stupidly folded in his lap. “I guess you have me figured out then,” Luke mumbles. He does, however, note that Ashton’s casually left out the bullying and lack of will to continue on from day to day. He thinks that’s for the better. “Congrats.”

“Don’t be sassy—”

“I want to go home,” Luke interrupts. Whether or not he actually wants to is still up for debate; it’s just that his mouth has a tendency to work when he can feel all the edges of his heart through his sternum. He knows he’ll go back to laying in bed with that Mayday Parade record on loop, but that seems better and better with every increasing moment. “Everett street.”

There’s a soft squeal of the breaks as Ashton stops the car. “I wasn’t trying to ups—”

“I’m tired,” Luke recites. It’s a broken record of a line — whenever he’s called out for being anything less than neuronormative. “And I want to go home.”

“ _Luke_ ,” Ashton warns. His voice is almost three octaves lower, Luke swears it, and he’s trying to ignore the shudder that passes through his body at the sound. “Let me fucking finish a goddamn sentence, will you?”

He pauses, waits for Luke to dare to speak. When the blonde doesn’t, he sighs deeply, slowly.

“Thank god,” he breathes. “For a boy with such a pretty mouth, it looks so much better closed.”

That’s it for Luke. He’s unbuckled in a matter of seconds, pausing only to shoot his best glare at Ashton as his hands rest on the door handle.

“I wanted to think you were a lot better than what people said about you,” he spits, swinging open the door, leg following out. “But they’re right. You’re a shit person, Ashton. Fuck you.”

His feet meet the pavement and he’s out before Ashton can tell him to stay.

But he doesn’t anyway. And when Ashton’s car disappears down the road without another word, Luke can feel his edges blurring— back to the numbing nothing he's used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess you could say Luke lost control.
> 
> hashtag sorry for the next chapters in advance


End file.
